Top guns of the sprint go head to head

11 March 2016 - 02:37 By David Isaacson

South Africa's two fastest men, Akani Simbine and Henricho Bruintjies, are set to go head to head for the first time this season at the two-day Gauteng North championships in Pretoria tomorrow.Simbine on Tuesday clocked 9.96sec at the same Pilditch Stadium venue to break the 9.97 SA 100m record he had shared with Bruintjies.His season-opener surprised even his new training partner, who joined Simbine's team two weeks ago."It's still early. I don't know where he got the energy from," Bruintjies said yesterday at their Tuks club.Also, there were long-jumper Luvo Manyonga, sprinter Carina Horn and 400m hurdler Wenda Nel, all of whom have already achieved qualifying times for the 2016 Rio Olympics.Club manager Danie Cornelius pointed out that Tuks had four athletes currently ranked No1 in the world: Simbine, Horn, Manyonga and pole-vaulter Eben Beukes.Bruintjies made it clear he had no ambition to go fast just yet. "I'll take it easy - the plan is to be going fast by the time I get to Europe [for the northern hemisphere season ahead of the Olympics]."Simbine has yet to complete his training cycle. "We're still in the general phase and get out of it at the end of the month," said the World Student Games champion, who is likely to run the 200m today...

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